DRIVERRN

Hospice Nurses see this type of thing alot. I personally called a family to say goodbye to an elderly woman who had shallow resp. of 6/m and HR of 36 with legs mottled. As soon as I got off the phone, with them on their way, I returned to her bedside. I informed her "they are on the way" and was pretty surprised to see a rapid improvement in her vitals back to normal. By the time they got there an hour later she was sitting up eating a snack! She died 2 months later.

One day, like everyone else, jay leno will need and get up close and real personal with a nurse. If he lives and he has memory left, he will be grateful like David Letterman, will recognize the worth of a nurse, and will say something positive as Letterman did about the Nurses he had. I know he is a comedian and we should take a joke but to be equated with a whore is not too funny. It's about as funny as jay being compared to Arnold in California, who also has a low opinion of nurses. I doubt jay leno would enjoy the comparison. I doubt he would enjoy the CNA showing up at all his speaking functions like they do the Governator's to remind him we are not who or what he says we are. Careful jay, the CNA could be watching your monologues and they might not be amused. You may have to get some travel nurses from out of state for your private duty care. If any of you are wondering what I am talking about click on calnurses.org. If you are tired of mandatory overtime, too may patients to handle per shift and low pay, join NNOC. National Nurse Organizing Committee. Quit complaining and act.

Please contact some of the nursing schools in Oklahoma. I have read in the papers this state is very cooperative in transferring credits and assisting students and teachers relocate ASAP and resume education without having to pay out of state tuition. University of Oklahoma is a very good nursing school with NP programs and uis located in Norman.

No one should have to be put in this position. Neither one of the people using is your friend. Cocaine is their friend. They have put you in legal jeopardy by showing you their illegal activity. If the police had come into the home while you were there everyone including you would have been arrested for possession. The woman with the coke has a dangerous contact who sells it to her and/or she probably sells coke to get her supply. I would never be in her home again for any reason. They are both addicts--coke and sex. Tell them both to stay as far away from you as possible until they are "sober" and save yourself because evidently they don't care about themselves any more so why would you expect them to care about you? This is a serious problem for you to take a stand to protect yourself and your nursing license, possibly your life. People who deal in cocaine are in the business to make money at any cost to other people. This is not just a "personal problem", this is a scourge that kills people or ruins lives/society. Think hard and do the right thing.

OB Doc on checking a footling breech told me, "it,s nothing but a big ole turd--call me when she is presenting", walked out, attempted vag delivery about 6 hrs later and ended up doing a section 2 hours after that. It was twin boys and they made it. An angel watched over us.

My personal favorite is the Dad who called us on PP and asked how long to leave the baby under the"grow light" with the "duck tape" on the baby's eyes to get the "yellow color to go away". One of our OB docs was a bush pilot and when you woke him at night for orders he would say, "take 'er up to 10,000 feet" and one time he said "give her the same old dog food you've been giving her"! One patient we had evidently slept in a feather bed because there was a chicken feather on my glove after doing a vag exam!

I remember one of my instructors in nursing school writing "wanders about aimlessly with nothing to do" about me when I had one patient to care for. I had worked as an aide before school and had bathed up to 15 patients in the same time frame! She was a degree nurse who had no clinical skills and I resented it and never forgot it. I have had at least two jobs in my career that were so stressful from older nurses being hateful to me that I would vomit before going to my shift. I concentrated on my patients and learned to just "do my job" ignoring cruel remarks from jealous coworkers. I have also had some of the happiest and most fun times of my life in nursing. I am a NURSE and I would not ever think of leaving this wonderful profession. The nursing profession is filled with all kinds of personalities from sweet to poison and it has never been boring to me. It has been almost 40 years from candy striper to Case Manager and I don't regret any of it. My daughter followed me into nursing and she also probably would not trade jobs. She tells me about the little old lady who she helps by holding her hand and the sweet little 3 year old with fear erased with a soothing voice and I know she is a NURSE. That is what it is all about and the bad comes with the good. Dwell on the good and keep helping people in pain and fear from illness. You will be blessed.

As an RN from a Diploma program graduated 1970, I have some advice to offer. Get a job at a hospital on a Med-Surg floor and stick with it for at least a year. You will then have the clinical skills you need to be a nurse. We need you. We need you to be a competant caring patient care advocate to replace all of us "oldtimers" who will retire all at the same time in less than 10 years. Good Luck!

If you did have pain you would forget about it!

Every nurse when she senses being "snowballed"--that's an old term--should start anecdotal notes.......Keep track of incidents and "quotes from uncooperative employees" with date and time. Do Not let anyone see you doing this and don't talk to anyone about it. Maybe your Mom, HA! When there is less than ethical behavior going on and you try to come in and change things you will find this happening to you. Written counseling reports for problem employees are necessary and hold up in a Board hearing. So do anecdotal notes. If you have followed your chain of command and find no support you might start looking for a new job right away. I would like to know the name of this hospital so I can never go there even in traveling in case I would need medical care.

world famous doctor will eventually go down ---watch and see........He will mistreat the wrong(richer, more powerful or family member of such) person and the nurse and he will be out of the loop. Advocacy is not a myth. It works if you make it work. If the wolves sense fear they will attack Do not follow a bad order. Do not accept unethical treatment of your patients--just remember that could be your Mother or Father in that bed, treat them as such and you will never go wrong. Do you really at to work in a place that treats people less than animals ? Nurses can always get another job. The nightmare jobs I was fired from for speaking out were just a "bad dream" a few weeks later and I did tell my next job why I left in detail.Do not let them scare you into silence.

I must say I have gotten into hot water many many times in my nursing life and it was always worth it in the end to be a patient advocate. I can sleep well knowing I did the right thing, opened my mouth and stood up for what I knew was right even if it got me fired and it did. I say you can never go wrong if you speak for your patient to protect or defend from harm. In this day and age of terrible lack of caring and greed with hospitals turned into businesses instead of what they were meant to be. I feel it is very important to advocate and make it a part of your documentation to "seal the deal'. I have used this to get better care more than once....call a doctor for orders and get hung up on or given a bad order---what do you do? Call back and tell the doctor you are writing his words and actions in the chart. It did not win me any popularity contests but it worked to get the patient care needed. It is used everyday in my documentation as a Case Manager for elderly and disabled who have problems voicing needs in the complicated systems of Medicare and Medicaid. Getting the medications they need is always a challenge in limited programs that will pay for some brand names, the rest in generics with rules for prior authorization that are even difficult for nurses to unravel. Shoot, I had trouble getting a med paid for myself and had to advocate for me. The "doubletalk" I got from a pharmacy tech made my blood pressure go up. I feel sorry for anyone trying to get healthcare these days.